African Agriculture and Food Systems
By Kilimokwanza Thirty-five grams. That is roughly a quarter of a small mango. Half an orange. Two modest slices of papaya. It is the average amount of fruit consumed daily by women of reproductive age in the Arusha and Kilimanjaro regions, according to a new research brief from the CGIAR Science Program on Better Diets […]
By Kilimokwanza Tanzania has a mobile money success story that much of the world envies. Seven in ten adults use mobile money services. Financial access points now sit within five kilometres of 86 percent of the population. The infrastructure, by any measure, is impressive. And yet, something is not adding up — quite literally. Agriculture […]
There is a story we tell ourselves about hunger and body weight in Africa, and it goes roughly like this: poverty causes undernutrition, and wealth brings better diets. It is a tidy narrative, and like many tidy narratives, the evidence is beginning to complicate it considerably. A new CGIAR research brief, titled Diets and Nutrition […]
By Elizabeth Shumbusho In 2010, Tanzania launched an ambitious experiment. The Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania — SAGCOT — set out to bring government, business, development partners, and smallholder farmers together around a shared vision for one of the country’s most productive agricultural zones. Fifteen years later, the results are significant. The SAGCOT Corridor […]
Seven research briefs from the CGIAR Science Program on Better Diets and Nutrition paint a detailed and troubling picture: nearly all women surveyed consume far below the recommended daily fruit and vegetable intake, and the consequences are showing up in blood pressure readings, body weight, and market stalls alike. Walk through any market in Arusha […]
By Kilimokwanza Mama Amina wakes before dawn to prepare breakfast for her family before the long walk to the shamba. She has never felt sick, not in any way she could name. No dizziness that lasted. No chest pains that made her stop. And so she has never seen a reason to visit the clinic […]
By Kilimokwanza There is a convenient assumption buried in conversations about vegetable production and nutrition in Africa: that more vegetables, grown by more farmers, is unambiguously good for dietary health. The July 2025 research brief titled Vegetable, Fruit, and Staple Crop Production and Input Use: Baseline Findings from the FRESH End-to-End Evaluation (Tanzania Evaluation, Research […]
By Kilimokwanza If Tanzania’s vegetable farming is dominated by a small number of crops, its fruit farming is dominated by a single one. The July 2025 research brief titled Vegetable, Fruit, and Staple Crop Production and Input Use: Baseline Findings from the FRESH End-to-End Evaluation (Tanzania Evaluation, Research Brief 3, July 2025), assessing agricultural production […]
By Kilimokwanza Arusha and Kilimanjaro sit beside each other on the map, share a climate zone shaped by Mount Kilimanjaro, and are often grouped together in development programming. The July 2025 research brief titled Vegetable, Fruit, and Staple Crop Production and Input Use: Baseline Findings from the FRESH End-to-End Evaluation (Tanzania Evaluation, Research Brief 3, […]
By Kilimokwanza Walk into a kitchen in Arusha or Kilimanjaro and you are likely to encounter African eggplant. Known locally as nyanya chungu, or bitter tomato, it appears in stews, relishes, and soups across both regions. It is not an exotic ingredient. It is a daily food, a traditional vegetable with deep roots in local […]